


If At First You Don't Succeed

by sarapod (four_right_chords)



Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 21:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/four_right_chords/pseuds/sarapod
Summary: The thing about Eugene, Zach thinks to himself, is that he's just so fucking cool. He's smooth and charming and obnoxiously handsome, whereas Zach … Zach is what happens when you've never been cool enough or cute enough or smart enough to not have to be funny. Zach is a lot of things, and they're all fine - he's done a lot of work, and he mostly likes himself at the end if the day - but he is definitely not cool.In which Eugene is cool, Zach is a dork, and a lot of champagne is consumed.





	If At First You Don't Succeed

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, my beta-ing love, for the beta.

Zach is on his fifth champagne toast. He can’t figure out why it’s called a champagne toast, there isn’t a piece of toast to be found anywhere in the area, but the waiter called it a champagne toast and Zach has had five of them. His groomsman duties are discharged. Keith and Becky are surrounded by their other, more coordinated friends on the dance floor, and Zach wants to drink champagne, so he will. He will drink champagne until it comes out his eyeballs. “I will drink champagne,” he declares, “until - until there isn't any more champagne!” He punctuates this sentiment with a wave of his glass in Eugene’s general direction. Eugene is slouching in the chair next to Zach. His tie is loosened and his sleeves are rolled up, and he more or less looks like every fantasy Zach pretends he doesn't have when he's sober. 

The thing about Eugene, Zach thinks to himself, is that he's just so fucking  _ cool. _  He's smooth and charming and obnoxiously handsome, whereas Zach … Zach is what happens when you've never been cool enough or cute enough or smart enough to not have to be funny. Zach is many things, and they're all fine - he's done a lot of work, and he mostly likes himself at the end of the day - but he is definitely not cool.

He is thinking about this as he stares at Eugene and absently rolls his champagne flute back and forth between his fingers. Right on cue, Eugene leans forward and plucks the glass out of Zach’s hand. Zach stares at his empty hand in momentary shock. Now there is no more champagne. He's pretty sure that means he has to stop drinking champagne, which was not at all the plan here. 

“You're going to regret these in the morning, Kornfeld,” Eugene says. He finishes Zach’s drink in one long swallow. Zach watches his throat work. 

Zach is fetishizing Eugene drinking champagne. Even several sheets to the wind, he can recognize that that's not normal. “Regret  _ you _ in the morning,” he mumbles belatedly, trying to drown out his pickled brain's insane suggestions.

Eugene grins. “You wouldn't, though.” He puts down the glass, wipes his mouth on the cuff of his sleeve. It's a weirdly classless gesture and it's making Zach’s knees feel watery. The champagne has broken something inside his brain. “People don't.”

Zach snorts. Then he subsides. They watch the dancers in silence for a few minutes before it occurs to him to him to ask, “Why’r’nt you out there?” He knows Eugene can dance. He’s seen him. It’s … distracting.

Eugene shrugs. “Not really a big dancer,” he says. “Not…” He pauses, and Zach dimly realizes that they're on the precipice of a Moment, one of those times when Eugene decides to expose a part of himself he normally keeps under lock and key. Zach breathes very, very quietly, trying not to disturb the air around them for fear that the moment will break. Eugene doesn't share, as a rule. 

“Not in front of straight people,” Eugene finally says. A different person would mumble, but when Eugene makes a decision, he commits to it. “I learned to dance in gay clubs,” he continues. “It can be kind of obvious.” 

Zach has had four and a half champagne toasts, several glasses of wine, and maybe half a sandwich since noon, which is the only explanation for what falls out of his mouth in response: “I  _ wish _ I was more obvious in front of straight people.”

He hears himself say it and knows he must look like a cartoon even as he’s reacting to his own words, eyes widening as he literally claps his hands over his mouth. He's never said anything about that - not  _ ever, _  to anyone - and now? Like this, to Eugene? Who is staring at Zach without a hint of amusement on his face?

“Excuse me?” he finally says, tone icy. Zach’s hands are still covering his mouth, like if he keeps them there it won't betray him again. “Zachary, you  _ are _ straight people."

With the deepest reluctance, Zach lets his hands drop. His eyes follow them down and he's staring at his lap as he mumbles, “Not actually.” Zach didn't make the decision to share - his mouth moved without his consent - so he refuses to commit. 

He has to look up eventually, though, and when he does it is exactly as bad as he feared. “You are wasted,” Eugene says, “and you are being a shit.” Before Zach can figure out how to even begin fixing this, Eugene is up and gone.

 

* * *

 

When Zach’s alarm buzzes the next morning and he wakes up to a head that feels stuffed with old cotton and attached wrong, his first thought is,  _ Eugene was right, I regret everything.  _ His second thought is Eugene’s voice saying,  _ You are wasted and you are being a shit.  _

So he's had better mornings.

Half an hour later, though, he's showered and dressed for post-wedding brunch like a good little groomsman. He feels exactly as much like Frankenstein’s monster as he did when he woke up, but he's pretty sure he looks okay. He didn't cut himself shaving, the wedding haircut he got is actually pretty great, and he did his best to bring clothes he feels attractive in. (Everyone wants to get laid at weddings.) It does feel sort of like dressing up for his execution, since Eugene will definitely also be at brunch, but he decides not to think about that as he heads to the restaurant in the lobby.

Brunch is fine. Ned and Ariel look about as good as Zach feels, but have put on their best faces for Keith and Becky’s families. Keith is generally delighted by brunch, and celebratory brunch featuring all his favorite foods is more or less his own personal nirvana. He is, however, even more delighted by Ned, Ariel, and Zach’s horrific hangovers, and takes great pleasure in speaking loudly to them while clanking his silverware. Zach drinks probably a gallon of coffee and eats roughly his weight in breakfast potatoes covered in Hollandaise sauce, and by the end of the meal he actually feels like a human being.

Eugene is also there. He looks like he slept eight hours after drinking two liters of water. Zach is too busy internally wringing his hands to resent him, but he files it away to do later. He's making a to-go cup of coffee when he feels a hand clap down on his shoulder and hears Eugene’s voice say, “Take a walk with me.”

Zach nearly jumps out of his skin. It is basically a miracle that he doesn’t throw his coffee across the room. “Jesus, Yang,” he snaps. “You're going to fucking kill me.”

He turns around in time to see Eugene’s eyeroll. “I might,” he says. “But not yet. Come on.” He turns and starts walking away, and what can Zach do? He follows, up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway to what must be Eugene’s hotel room.

Zach automatically considers and discards several jokes on the subject of Eugene taking him to his room as they're walking. He's not stupid enough to misunderstand why Eugene is mad at him, and he knows how those jokes would land right now. It just sucks. Some of them were really good.

So instead he says nothing while Eugene opens the door, lets him in, locks the door behind them, and sprawls in a chair by the window, collapsing effortlessly into a pose straight out of GQ. (Zach takes a moment to wonder what it must be like to be perpetually well-lit, regardless of the actual lighting available.) He continues to say nothing while Eugene stares into the middle distance. Finally, Eugene says, “I know you were drunk off your ass last night. But … ” 

His jaw works, hands clenching and unclenching on his thighs. Zach realizes to his astonishment that he’s seeing Eugene nervous. He decides to sit. Whatever is about to happen will be better sitting down.

“You can't … do that,” Eugene eventually settles on. “I know we give each other shit all the time, it’s literally part of our brand, but.” He exhales, and Zach watches him rub his palms over his jeans while he tries to put together the next sentence. “I didn’t know you knew,” he says finally, incredibly quietly. “And I don’t appreciate being made fun of like that.”

Zach has never been more lost in his life. His free-associating brain gives him an episode of  _ Sports Night _ wherein Dan, stricken with writer’s block, tells Casey, “I’m in the tall grass, man! I’m in the weeds!” Zach is also in the tall grass and the weeds, as well as in a boat at sea. There is no other way through this. He’s going to have to talk about it. “Eugene,” he says, moving to the side of the bed closest to Eugene’s chair, “what the hell are you talking about?”

Eugene looks up from where he’s been staring holes into his shoes, and the look on his face is beyond interpretation. “You don’t remember,” he says. There is no expression in his voice.

All at once Zach hits the limits of both his patience and his ability to deal with this situation on Eugene’s terms. He explodes. “Oh, I fucking remember!” he snaps. “I remember drunkenly and stupidly outing myself to you - ” it’s the first time he’s ever said that out loud, but he’s so annoyed that he doesn’t even take a second to have feelings about it - “and I remember you getting really fucking mad and walking away, and all of that is fair, but - you didn’t know I knew? Didn’t know I knew what? What the hell is going on?!”

There are any number of questions in there to which he’d like answers, but Eugene, of course, fastens onto the one thing Zach said that wasn’t a question in any way, shape or form. “Outed yourself,” he replies. “So you … that was serious?”

Now that the anger and residual champagne fumes have burned off, Zach finds that he can’t look at Eugene anymore. “I mean,” Zach says quietly, eyes on the floor, “I don’t know. I’ve never.” His stomach is in knots. “But like. They say if you wonder if you’re … you know … ” He chances a quick look up; Eugene’s eyes are locked on him. He swallows hard and keeps going. “If you wonder if you’re not straight enough to be allowed to say that you’re not actually straight, then … I mean. They say straight people don’t wonder about that.”

It’s the most he’s ever said on the subject. He is pretty sure he’s going to die at any second.

Eugene coughs, or clears his throat or something; makes a sound, and says, “Yeah. I don’t think they do.”

There’s a noise like he’s moving, but Zach, who has not stopped staring at his hands, is still startled when the bed next to him dips and Eugene’s knee enters his line of sight.

“So, uh.” Eugene makes that same throat noise again, and Zach looks up in time to see Eugene swipe a hand through his hair and give a sideways smile. “I think we’re supposed to talk about your feelings now, but I’m actually pretty fucking terrible at that.”

Zach snorts. “Eugene, I just talked about my own sexual orientation using entirely hypotheticals.” Eugene laughs quietly, and the sound makes something inside Zach unclench. “I just … ” He's quiet for a second, then says, “You know I don't have the best luck with girls. I never even knew where to start with guys, so I just … didn't.” He shrugs. “Mostly it's fine, but like.” He goes back to picking his cuticles. He's running out of ways to fidget. “Lately it's been. Harder.”

The silence between them is unspooling almost comfortably when Zach suddenly remembers where the conversation had been going before Eugene led them down this delightful road called ‘Zach’s sexuality, broadly construed’ and away from the road labeled ‘topics in any way bearing upon Eugene Yang.’ 

“Wait a minute, wait a fucking minute!” Zach sputters, turning to face Eugene and glaring. “What didn't you know I knew? You can't just fucking lull me into a false sense of, of, fucking sympathy or whatever, and get off the hook! Answer the question.”

Eugene’s eyes immediately slide away from Zach. He’d clearly been hoping Zach would forget. He has not forgotten. Zach has nowhere to be and can sit here all day. Or at least until 3 PM, 3 PM is check-out.

Now it’s Eugene’s turn to explore new and exciting ways to fidget: he rubs the back of his neck, bites his lip, jiggles his knee. It is entirely unlike him, and Zach is selfishly delighted by the idea that he’s seeing a side of Eugene that he hasn’t seen before. He feels like the moment needs a David Attenborough narration:  _ here we find the wild Eugene Yang, caught off his guard. _ He’s idly scripting it into a bit when Eugene mutters, “About you.”

Zach stares, but it doesn’t get any clearer. “ … About me,” he repeats. “You … didn’t know that I knew about me?”

Eugene doesn’t say anything, just picks at his cuticles. Zach thinks he might be honest-to-god blushing. It’s fucking adorable, but it doesn’t help Zach understand what the fuck he’s talking about.

Unless.

Oh Jesus.

“Eugene,” Zach says. He thinks his voice is squeaking. “Are you saying - do you -  _ me?!”  _ It’s utterly incoherent, but Zach used up pretty much all his ‘being vulnerable’ energy on the earlier conversation. This is what he’s got left.

“Forget it,” Eugene mutters. “It’s fine, forget it.” He moves to get up, but Zach flings out a hand before he can complete the motion, smacking Eugene in the chest and stalling his forward motion.

“No, fucking wait,” Zach sputters. “That’s just - it’s not possible!” He’s staring at Eugene like Eugene really is some form of weird, rare bird. “You get that it’s not possible, right? I mean - Eugene, look at you.” He makes a gestures that encompasses Eugene’s perfect hair, tasteful jewelry, really good pants. (Zach doesn’t actually know how to talk about nice clothes. The pants make Eugene’s ass look great. They’re good pants.)

“Fucking look at you,” he says again, and he knows in some distant part of his brain that he’s trying to talk Eugene out of wanting to have sex with him, but the entire thought is too fantastical to be taken seriously. Zach thinks he’d try to talk Santa out of bringing presents to children at this point if it would get him closer to a shared reality. “I - you couldn’t possibly - that’s not how this works!” He drops his hands into his lap and stares at Eugene imploringly, trying to get him to say something that makes sense through sheer force of will.

Eugene shrugs. He’s still not looking directly at Zach, but he seems a little calmer. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. “Everyone’s got a type. I guess nebbishy and nervous is mine.” He looks at him for the first time in awhile, through his eyelashes, and Zach forgets to breathe for a second. Eugene clearly takes his silence as permission and leans in, slowly, like Zach is a stray dog he’s trying not to spook and also kiss. Which is actually sort of a gross metaphor, but oh god Eugene is kissing him.

Somewhere in the haze inside his brain, Zach recognizes that he should be kissing back, but it doesn't fully compute until Eugene starts pulling away. “Wait!” Zach yelps, blindly grabbing Eugene’s shirt with both hands. He immediately lets go, smoothing his palms over the definitely expensive material he's just wrinkled. He breathes in, breathes out. Eugene isn't moving. “Wait,” Zach says again, “just - ”

Zach finds all his courage, grabs it with both hands, and reaches up. He runs his thumb along Eugene’s cheekbone and mutters, “Let me try this again.”

This time Zach’s the one to close the space between them, and Eugene thankfully responds like a human being instead of a weird nervous statue. He kisses back with a frankly terrifying amount of skill, and okay. Okay. This is happening. Zach can be cool. He's kissed tons of people and had an entirely respectable amount of sex for a grown-ass man. This is fine.

It's the moment when Eugene maneuvers Zach underneath him and Zach feels Eugene’s dick slot into place next to his own - and yes, he absolutely makes an extremely undignified sound and what he hopes is a vaguely sexy hip roll when it happens - that Zach acknowledges that there is no way he can be cool.

“Eugene,” he gasps out. “Eugene, hold on.”

Eugene looks up from where he’s doing something to Zach's neck that’s probably still illegal in Arkansas and Mississippi, and he looks so good that Zach briefly forgets his own name. But the rising tide of nervousness in his chest reminds him of his purpose, and he says, “Hey. I just - you know I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.”

Eugene strokes his hand over Zach’s hair (which, thank fuck for expensive haircuts that make prematurely thinning hair look like a fashion statement) and shrugs. It is, as shrugs go, both sexy and kind. “You're doing fine so far,” he says.

“Well, yeah,” Zach mutters, “but we haven't gotten to any of … ” He gestures vaguely at the lower halves of their bodies. He's blushing so hard that he's surprised there’s any blood left for his hard-on.

Eugene, dear god,  _ smiles,  _ and says, “You mean this?” At which point he sets his entire hand directly on top of Zach’s dick.

The noise Zach makes in response to that is somewhere between a drowning cat and an angry raven. That Eugene is still in bed with him is a miracle on par with the miracle of Hannukah. “Yeah,” he manages, “that's - yeah.”

“Zachary,” Eugene says, and now his hand is  _ moving, _  cool cool cool, this is definitely survivable. “It is literally your fucking job to try new things. On camera. If you can get naked and covered in oil and recreate the ancient Olympiad for the internet’s viewing pleasure, I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to fuck.” He punctuates his comment with a squeeze that makes Zach’s spine arch involuntarily. “Now will you kindly shut the fuck up?”

Zach’s pretty sure it's his turn to say something sarcastic, but Eugene is unzipping his jeans and he’d much rather focus on that, so he does.

_ The Try Guys try: gay sex, _  is his last coherent thought before Eugene’s hands and mouth set about showing exactly why no one regrets him in the morning.


End file.
